Fluttering Upward to Extinction: Two Italian Butterflies are Among Many Animals that will Soon Disappear Because of Global Climate Change
Two Italian butterflies along with Rocky Mountain stoneflies, North American gazelle beetles, wolverines, polar bears, and emperor penguins will soon be extinct because of rising global temperatures
That global climate change is real and rapidly altering the Earth for the worse for humans and all Life is no longer a question or subject of debate among reputable scientists. Across the entire Planet, we see daily dramatic and unnaturally hotter or colder temperatures, or drier or wetter conditions are forcing species to move to different regions or eliminating them altogether.
Although it’s well known many cold loving species such as polar bears, wolverines, and penguins are being driven to extinction by global climate change, the vast majority of the plants and animals facing eradication in the near future are little known or given any importance by politicians or even scientists, even those living in heavily populated developed nations.
Apennine Mountains in Italy
We can see how global climate change is devastating two “insignificant” butterflies in the Apennines, a 750 mile long mountain range extending in a northwest to southeast orientation along the length of peninsular Italy. These mountains are lower in average elevation and cover a smaller area than the Alps located to their north. Several plant and animal species are found exclusively in the Apennines, including two lady’s cushions, brown “Marsican” bear, Apennine chamois and many insects including 35 different grasshoppers katydids, and crickets.
Figure 1. Apennine mountains in Italy. Alps located to the north .
Figure 2. The “Marsican” brown bear, also known as the Apennine brown bear or Oso Bruno Marsicano. It is restricted to the Apennine Mountains. In the 1980s, there were hundreds of animals, but the single existing population is now estimated to contain only 50 bears.
Among the animal and plants who live only in the Apennines are species, subspecies, and populations that are chionophilous or orophilous. Both of these are ecological terms referring to species restricted to the environmental conditions of cold winters (chionophilous), and plants and animals who prefer mountainous habitats (orophilous).
During the cold or glacial cycles of the Pleistocene Epoch which occurred between about 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago, chionophilous plants and animals were widespread across much of northern Europe and Asia. When the glaciers retreated and climatic conditions grew warmer (=interglacial cycles), species requiring cold environments became extinct, moved to cooler habitats located further north at higher latitudes, or upward on cold mountain peaks. The fact we are currently in an interglacial period combined with the unnaturally rapidly rising temperatures of human-caused global climate change has had devastating impacts on chionophiles.
Figure 3. Gray areas indicate extent of Pleistocene glaciers in Italy and surrounding countries. Map from Hughes et al. (2006).
Global climate change has forced many chionophiles living in low lying areas that were warmed during interglacials to become orophilous seeking cooler temperatures at higher altitudes. However, because the amount of suitable habitat rapidly decreases with increasing altitude, this shift resulted in an increased risk of extinction.
Imperiled Butterflies
Two of the butterflies inhabiting higher altitudes in the Italian Apennines are imperiled by global climate change - the northern wall brown and the dewy ringlet. The few populations of both species in this isolated mountain range are remnants of formerly more widely ranging populations that inhabited much of the Italian peninsula during Pleistocene glaciation.
The northern wall brown whose scientific name is Lasiommata petropolitana is found from the Pyrenees, north to Scandinavia and Finland then east into western Siberia. It has a fairly contiguous distribution in the northern portion of its range, but only isolated populations in cold mountainous areas in southern Europe.
In 1963, on the basis of the color patterns on its wings, the Apennine population was given the subspecific name Lasiommata petropolitana centralapennia. However, many lepidopterists currently do not consider centralapennia distinctive enough from other populations of the northern wall brown to warrant its own name.
The northern wall brown is found in cool, humid locations in light pine or larch forests growing on sandy or stony ground above altitudes of about 4,000 feet. The caterpillars feed on various species of native grasses. The winter is passed in the larval or chrysalid stages. The adults fly from late May to early July.
The warming temperatures of global climate change have been driving the northern wall brown to higher altitudes in the Apennines. Between 1964 and 2021, populations shifted uphill an average of about 20 feet per year. Scientific models predict its extinction in the Apennines by the year 2060 due to the fact that given the projected higher temperatures the mountain peaks are not high enough to support suitable habitat.
The northern wall brown is listed as an endangered species in Germany and Poland. In the Czech Republic, the butterfly is now extinct due to incompatible land uses, and the effects of livestock grazing and afforestation.
Figure 4. Northern wall brown butterfly
Figure 5. Known populations of northern wall brown in the Alps and Apennines. Note the populations of this butterfly in the Apennine Mountains (blue circle)
Figure 6. Top photo - Site in the Czech Republic that was once inhabited by the northern wall brown, but the bottom photo shows the open suitable habitat was eliminated by forest growth. Photos from Spritzer et al. (2017)
The dewy ringlet is another butterfly inhabiting the Apennines which is imperiled by global climate change. Its range includes some of the higher mountain ranges in southern Europe - Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Balkans; Fenoscandia and the Kola Peninsula; then after a huge geographic gap, the mountains of southern Siberia from Altai to the Lake Baikal area. The habitats used by this species include sparsely vegetated screes, alpine grasslands, sparsely vegetated forested areas, mountain meadows, and marshlands.
Figure 7. Dewy ringlet butterfly
Figure 8. Known populations of the dewy ringlet in the Alps and Apennines. Note the single population on the Monte della Lago Massiff in the Apennines mountains (blue circle).
The dewy ringlet is found at high altitudes above 6600 feet in the Apennines. In this mountain range, the only known population is located within a 2,500 acre area on the Monet Della Lago Massiff. Based on the distinctive color patterns on the wings and its genetics, the dewy ringlet butterflies in the Appennies have been named Erebia pandrose sevoensis.
Butterflies of the genus Erebia are an element of alpine habitats and high altitudes in the northern hemisphere. Given their obligatory relationship to cold environments, they are excellent models for assessing the effects of global climate change. Erebia caterpillars feed on various species of native grasses. Curiously, larvae of high altitude Erebia can only survive the winter while under a “warm” insulating blanket of snow and they are less tolerant of freezing temperatures than the caterpillars of those species living at lower altitudes.
The closest dewy ringlet populations to the single population of the Apennine dewy ringlet are located to the north in the Alps. The butterflies in the two mountain ranges are genetically and morphological distinct from each other. The geographic distance between the Alps and the Apennines is about 250 miles of unsuitable habitat making gene flow between the animals inhabiting these two areas highly unlikely to occur.
In response to the fatal higher temperatures caused by global climate change, the Apennine dewy ringlet has been moving upwards in altitude in the mountains. It has moved higher at about 9 feet per year since the end of the 19th Century and more than 70 feet per year since 1995. Given the height of the peaks in the Monte Della Lago Massiff (maximum elevation 8,200 feet) along with rising temperatures, the animal will soon run out of suitable habitat. Already, the species lives about a thousand feet higher than it did in the 1970s. Based on global climate change models which predict higher temperatures and greatly reduced alpine snow levels (resulting in lower survival of the caterpillars), the extinction of the Apennine dewy ringlet is inevitable within a few decades or sooner.
Figure 9. Nebria baumanni is restricted to the Spring Mountains, an isolated “sky island” range located near Las Vegas, Nevada. Nebria inhabit cool and cold habitats and many species are intolerant of the rising temperatures caused by global climate change.
Vanishing Gazelle Beetles
Similar observations were reported by an entomologist who specializes in a group of insects known as gazelle beetles or by their scientific name Nebria. Many of the 42 North American Nebria species are cool or cold adapted animals restricted to arctic or alpine habitats. In the 1970s, the scientist conducted extensive surveys for the beetles finding many species were restricted to the higher elevations of isolated mountain ranges or specific high peaks. Going back to a number of these locations some 40 years later, he documented a large number of Nebria had moved upwards to cooler temperatures from their previous lower altitude habitat. The magnitude of the retreat from warming temperatures by the beetles is monumental - an average of nearly 1000 feet higher since the 1970s. In addition to populations that moved to higher altitudes, some gazelle beetle species had entirely vanished, and at some sites, more widespread Nebria that can tolerate higher temperatures had moved up in elevation.
Figure 10. Nymph of the meltwater lednian stonefly. This animal is found only in high alpine glacier-fed meltwater streams in the northern Rocky Mountains. The glaciers which are the source of the riparian habitat are projected to disappear due to global climate change by 2060.
High Mountain Stoneflies
In 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (=USFWS) listed the meltwater Lednian stonefly and the western glacier stonefly as threatened with section 4(d) rules under the Endangered Species Act (= ESA). Both of these animals have very low thermal tolerances and are restricted to high elevation glacier-fed cold-melt water streams in the northern Rocky Mountains. The USFWS based their decisions on the indisputable science on the fact global climate change is melting the glaciers which are changing the volume of snowmelt and runoff, and rising water temperatures which are degrading the unique habitats of these chionophiles. But hidden away in the fine print of the final rules listing them is the disturbing information the USFWS has arbitrarily concluded ESA section 7 can’t be used to address the numerous human sources of greenhouse gases - a cause of global climate change that is melting the glaciers which are the cold water source of the stoneflies’ habitat. In other words, Agency higher ups are unwilling to tackle the ultimate cause of the threat to two listed species, and they won’t attempt, let alone voluntarily contemplate regulating or enforcement of the human sources producing these gases.
The USFWS has continuously and steadfastly delayed or even refused to give the protections of the Endangered Species Act to a number of species imperiled by global climate change, as required by the ESA and even when urged to do so by its own highly trained professional staff. The common thread running through the refusals and delays by Agency higher ups is the failure to follow Congress’s intent that the Endangered Species Act will “.. give the benefit of the doubt to the species,” and apparently some USFWS leaders have made the calculation regulating or eliminating the human sources of greenhouses gases affecting listed species has no career benefits for them and far too much political blowback.
Figure 11. The USFWS estimated there are about 250 wolverines in the contiguous United States, primarily in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, with a few in Washington and California. Despite the recommendations of their expert endangered species biologists, some Agency leaders decided not to protect the animal under the ESA based on what some have called politically driven “science.”
Wolverine - Political Hot Potato
An unfortunate victim of this do-nothingism leadership is the wolverine which is imperiled by the loss of its cold weather habitat due to global climate change and secondary effects from genetic problems caused by its small population sizes, and from trapping. Its proposed protection under the ESA was withdrawn despite USFWS expert endangered species biologists and a high ranking Agency official presenting overwhelming scientific information demonstrating the threats more than justified its listing under the Endangered Species Act. A high-level USFWS manager signing a written document expressing concern for an imperiled species and urging its listing in the face of clear higher-level opposition was and remains, to my knowledge, without precedent in the Agency’s history.
But, as expected, it was politics that won the battle to ESA list the wolverine. In response, the wagons were quickly circled, and some USFWS higher ups made liberal use of what some professional scientists would consider creative interpretations of the existing biological and ecological knowledge of the wolverine, seemingly obvious deference to agenda-driven State fish and game agencies who are often less than supportive of actions that could reduce opportunities for hunting and fishing, and the unwritten but ever present concern of many Agency leaders leaders about extremely negative reactions to listing and protecting any species, no matter how imperiled, but especially ones found in States run by anti-GOV politicians and outspoken anti-government special interest groups.
Figure 12. The USFWS listed the polar bear and the emperor penguin as threatened species under the ESA. Unfortunately, they issued section 4(d) rules for both species that prevent enforcement actions to reduce human sources of greenhouse gases, one of the primary causes of Antarctic and Arctic ice melting global climate change.
Unprotected Polar Bears and Emperor Penguins
Some USFWS higher ups used a bureaucratic sleight of hand to give the illusion the ESA is protecting the polar bear and the emperor penguin from their deadliest threat - loss of their sea ice habitat caused by the warming temperatures of global climate change. Carefully camouflaged within the two rules listing these animals is language stating that while clear acknowledging the significant threat from global climate change the Agency determined the powerful and far reaching section 7 of the ESA can not be used to prevent their extinction because the USFWS can’t specifically identify and therefore address the facilities, industries, or other human sources of greenhouse gases which are causing global climate change. So sad, too bad for the polar bear and the emperor penguin - USFWS wishes they could save them from extinction but they can’t and won’t.
Conclusion
The extinction in the near future of the Apennine dewy ringlet and the northern wall brown in the Apennine Mountains is inevitable. There is nothing than can be done to prevent their loss because political leaders continue to refuse to undertake any meaningful actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
These two Apennine butterflies along with the Rocky Mountain stoneflies, gazelle beetles, polar bears, wolverines, and emperor penguins are among the countless species, including humans, that will be soon be eliminated forever from Planet Earth, since with very few exceptions, politicians work only for the best interests of the 1% and big business. In the United States, the once vaunted US Fish and Wildlife Service, one of the only Federal agencies that can do anything to effectively combat global climate change is run by far too many leaders who are driven by fear of political blowback to their careers and anything that could imperil their high retirement checks. Our politicians and government officials have doomed us and Life on Earth as we know it to extinction.
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